stituted. From this point of view rent is the price of labor substitutes (p. 121).

Dr. Patten reaches the climax of his philosophy of substitution when he says: "An increased power of substitution is the only remedy for an unequal distribution of wealth" (p. 140).

In the discussion of economic freedom with which Part II opens, Dr. Patten applies his philosophy of substitution, making the power of substitution the great factor in freedom, both of production and consumption.

Labor is free where there is a complete power of substitution. It is the doing or not doing, consuming or not consuming, being active or passive at will, being social or not social, that constitutes freedom (p. 152).

In his explanation of how the exploited in a society consent to the exploitation, Dr. Patten has recourse to the theory put forth in The Development of English Thought, that environments change rapidly, while codes of morality- that is, customs, traditions, habits, laws, and institutions persist. Hence, motor reactions developed in one environment continue after the situation is so changed that other forms of activity would be more advantageous (p. 159).

The real source of exploitation lies, not in political causes nor in competition, but in old traditions, habits, and prejudices. Had not antecedent conditions created contentment in bad environments, exploitation would be impossible in better situations (p. 162).

Exploitation, we are told, is, however, merely a necessary stage in social progress, rather than an enduring part of national life. This interpretation of the subject is certainly unique, but will hardly be universally accepted.

The next chapter, "Income as Increased by Adjustment," is perhaps the hardest reading in the book, while it is at the same time the most important to the sociologist in the discussion of the subject of impulse. The treatment is psychological and must be followed with the closest attention, or its fine points will escape the reader's notice. Dr. Patten himself tells us, on the fifth page of the chapter, after the word impulse has been used several times, that he has heretofore used the word in a way that suggests a variety of meanings, among which a common thought is apparently absent (p. 185). But the confusion is more apparent than real, he continues, and the thread of the argument, with a little care, can be followed. But without doubt more than "a little care" must be used to follow the discussion. Basing his argument on Dr. Ward's philosophy of desire, which he does not seem to

understand wholly, he develops his theory of impulse through contrasting the rôle of the two in society. The following can be gleaned from the discussion :

Impulse is the Desire is the feel

(Here it is clear

Activity is prompted either by desires or by impulses (p. 195). The aim of desire is satisfaction; that of impulse, ends. psychic feeling accompanying the outgo of energy. ing accompanying the consumption of goods (p. 185). that Dr. Patten confounds desire with its satisfaction.) Surplus energy stimulates impulse. Impulses are the motives that prompt complete adjustment. Thus, according to Dr. Patten, impulse is the progressive principle in human society. His impulse denotes the usual case in which the satisfaction of desire is not immediate, but where prolonged efforts are necessary for the attainment of the end, and it is in these efforts that the progressive principle resides. Through desire and its satisfaction which is immediate, society remains static. Impulse, which causes men to strive upward and onward toward the ideal, is the dynamic agent that transforms the type of the social structure. Desires are the outcome of past conditions and local situations, and as they become prominent they isolate men into the elementary groups out of which society came. Impulses spring from the new situations acquired through surplus energy. They blend the isolating elements, and give prominence to the new and the general toward which society is moving (p. 206). Society thus disintegrates on the side of desire and integrates on that of impulse (p. 206). Hence the only way to make a complex society continue progressive is to instil into all members of all classes the same impulses and ideals. If desire alone were observed in each of these classes of the heterogeneous society, the past, different for each class, would be accented and the disrupting forces alone set free. Hence the means of union in a mixed society are similar impulses and ideals tending toward a future common to all. This brings us to Dr. Patten's discussion of the origin and evolution of the group-ideal. The importance which he attaches to the function of the ideal is seen in the following:

The belief in a better-than-self is the binding element on whose ascendency the continuance of each social group and institution depends (p. 190). Self-repression is group-exaltation; it makes clubs, unions, clans, parties, and churches, and these in turn pave the way for the feeling of nationality. A simple impulse thus produces great effects. Men with a large social surplus cannot remain normal except through changes that impute to the social type a higher personality than that found in

the self. Society is the better-than-self (p. 194). "Once started the process cannot stop until energy is idealized as God and society is considered the mother of all" (p. 194). Emphasis is laid on the power of the ideal in nationalizing the group, and application is made to our own country. Says Dr. Patten :

Men should reason where they are alike, but where they differ they must have impulses to move them toward some common goal (p. 209).

For individuals and for single classes reasoning may become a guide to action, but it cannot arbitrate between classes (p. 203).

In a heterogeneous group, therefore, reason only tends to tear men asunder, for it accents the past and local environments. Only common ideals of a common future can draw men of different races and classes together. Hence "social harmony lies in what the race has before it and not in that through which its component elements have individually passed" (p. 204). There is no doubt but that, if this point of view were adhered to in political and social action, assimilation of the heterogeneous elements in the group would be much more rapid than at present. The fact that a nation like the United States has no rational basis for unity is again accented in the last chapter. While each class has its own needs, each section its own peculiarities evoking particular desires, and each race its own heredity, the new impulses that prosperity brings are common to all, and from them will come the forces creating national unity (p. 212).

The aim of the concluding chapter is to show that

Freedom consists not merely of political rights, but is dependent upon the possession of economic rights freely recognized and universally granted to each man by his fellow-citizens (p. 215).

An enumeration of these rights which "must be incorporated in the national thought and become as clearly defined as are political rights," is here given. For Dr. Patten tells us that

It is not from a theory of distribution that a solution of present difficulties will come, but from a better formulation of the moral code and from a clearer perception of the common rights that new impulses and ideals evoke (p. 214). The rights are grouped as: (1) public or market rights; (2) social rights; (3) rights of leisure; (4) exceptional rights. Under public or market rights are discussed the right to publicity, the right to security, and the right to co-operate. Under social rights are treated the right to a home, the right to develop or the right of contact with all the elevating forces in a civilization as long as life lasts, the right to wholesome standards, the right to homogeneity of population, and the

right to decision by public opinion. Under the rights of leisure are classed the right to comfort, the right to leisure, the right to recreation, the right to cleanliness, and the right to scenery. As exceptional rights are classed the right to relief and the right of women to income. This whole discussion is most sane and clear, and deserves the attention of every thinker on social subjects.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

Principles of Western Civilization.

SARAH E. SIMONS.

New

By BENJAMIN KIDD. York: The Macmillan Co., 1902. THE main concept of this book is that we are at the present time passing into a stage of social evolution in which the interests of the present will be consciously subordinated to the demands of a greater future. In the historical philosophy of the author, the ancient world is taken as the characteristic age of the ascendency of the present, as in it all thought and effort were concentrated upon immediate efficiency. The doctrines of early Christianity, on the other hand, heralded the reign of the future, which has, however, not as yet established itself, because the militarism and other absolutistic tendencies of the earlier era have not been completely superseded. The liberalism of the Manchestrian type is described as a particularly marked recrudescence of the reign of the present-a philosophy in which the welfare of existing individuals alone determines the content of the ethical system. A truer liberalism has, however, dawned: one in which free competition, carried on with the greatest intensity, will continue to reign; where truth will be conceived of as the resultant of conflicting forces; and where the interests of the future are to be clearly recognized as the cardinal element in the ethical system, as the sole factor by which the meaning of present existence can be determined.

The author's cause for action is the same as in his earlier work; namely, the narrowness of the ideals of classical liberalism, and the evident impulse of the thinking and working world to conceive ideals of wider reach and deeper meaning. But the solution which is here attempted invites at the outset the criticism that it is altogether too vague, and has not been reduced to that exactness which even an idealistic philosophy demands. The author confuses the universal, the ethical, and the future; and he assumes that whatever transcends the narrow interests of the individual may be classed as belonging to the system of the ascendency of the future. The assumption that the uni

versal, which gives all existences their meaning, is being worked out in the future, and hence that the future is superior to the present, is at first sight very plausible, and opens up an inviting vista of thought; but, in the form which it has been given by the author, it is totally devoid of content, confused, and unilluminating. In order that the future may be actually ascendant in the consciousness of living individuals, it must, of course, be assumed that future development can be predetermined with sufficient accuracy to form a basis of ethical judgments and of motives; otherwise the entire system of ethics would vanish into the air. In other words, if the future is to control, it must control through becoming part of consciousness. In every other sense it has controlled long ago, both because the forces of evolution have always been active, and because men at all times have peered into the future, and have, as far as possible, directed their actions toward the end of the most permanent efficiency. If more is to happen, it can come about only by a clearer conception of the actual contents of the future, which would virtually be rendering the future a part of the present. This metaphysical puzzle of placing the controlling center of human action beyond consciousness the author has done nothing to solve. Apparently the only way out of it is to take refuge in the idea of the subconscious or of the unconscious, in the mystic forces of human nature, or in the creation of a religion of the future; of course, if this were done, the philosophical meaning of the author's contention would be destroyed. So we cannot avoid the conclusion that, beyond the general idea that in forming our ethical judgments we must look toward the future, the author's theory is devoid of positive content. It points the way rather to an evolutionary religion, or an evolutionary poetry, than to an evolutionary philosophy, because the first object of the latter should be to explain the actual processes of evolution; and that the author's theory absolutely fails to do.

The sharp division which the author introduces between systems of civilization in which the present is ascendant, and those which presage an ascendency of the future, does not correspond with the facts which have been scientifically ascertained by history, and, we may almost say, which are matter of current knowledge. While the ancient world lacked the theory of evolution, it certainly, in the conduct of life, was by no means devoid of the feeling that the future development of the state is of the highest importance. Nor is it necessary to point out that, when Christian doctrine took the place of ancient philosophy, it was not the future, in the sense of the general